Review – Suicide Squad: Rebirth # 1

Suicide Squad relaunches this week, with Suicide Squad: Rebirth # 1. It would be crazy to not capitalize on the (mostly negative) buzz surrounding the Suicide Squad cinema release, so this iteration of Task Force X will see a line-up closely resembling the movie team.

As with all the other Rebirth # 1 specials, Suicide Squad: Rebirth serves as a starting point for potential new readers; essentially a summary of the central characters woven through the opening narrative to a new story arc. We are introduced to Amanda Waller, the puppet master in chief, who is trying to convince President Obama (or at least someone who looks a lot like Obama) to continue with the Task Force X program. He’s not keen as the last one ended in unsavoury fashion. She rolls Obama over in a manner so easy it’s unsettling. He agrees to allow the continuation of the morally bankrupt, and unquestionably criminal Suicide Squad activities if she can find someone trustworthy to lead the group. Luckily, Waller has just the man – Jack Flag.

Suicide Squad: Rebirth does a lot of things right. For anyone unfamiliar with the characters, it leaves you in no doubt who they are by the time it reaches the final page. Harley Quinn is mad and dangerous, Captain Boomerang is a lout and also quite dangerous. Deadshot shoots very well, and is obviously dangerous. Philip Tan’s artwork, and the inks of Jonathan Glampion, Scott Hanna and Sandu Florea, are perfectly suited to the frenetic world of the Squad. The detailed line work combined with the eye popping colour palette is as schizophrenic as the comic’s leads. It could be an issue of Justice League, if everyone wasn’t constantly murdering everyone else.

The problem with Suicide Squad: Rebirth #1 is that the story doesn’t really make much sense. Obama sanctioning the Squad is odd, as he is fully aware of the illegality of it. The idea that Jack Flag (who Obama describes as a hero) could have disappeared for three years without anyone, least of all the President knowing about it, is equally hard to believe. What’s even more incredible is that Flag doesn’t just shoot Waller in the face once she hands him a gun, considering she admits knowing that he was being jailed illegally. Why would Flag agree to lead her team when she could have arranged a fair trial for his military conduct years ago?

It would be easy to lay the blame for some of the baffling plot choices at writer Rob Williams’ feet, but it is unlikely that he had much choice in the characters he could use or the direction he could take. Unlike some of the more successful Rebirth relaunches, Williams has a multimillion dollar, star studded rock chained to his feet.

The necessity to mimic the movie team’s structure in the comic promises to hamper Suicide Squad going forward. Though the characters have their own quirks and can be very interesting in the right hands, any character will fall flat in the hands of a writer who is being forced to use them. Though Williams is undoubtedly a talented writer, the book will suffer unless he can rapidly find an affinity for the team he has been mandated to assemble. There will be more head scratching moments in the Squad’s future if he can’t.